Nasty Shoppers

When I picked up my refrigerator drawer part after work today, I came home through Elk Grove.

Elk Grove used to be the town where people from my area always went. They went shopping there, they went to high school there. Elk Grove was a small dairy and farm town. In the winter you would see half the population walking around in mucky boots. The small restaurants were full of these folks at breakfast time. You would always eat your eggs and bacon with the faint odor of dairy cow poo wafting through the air.

It's not a small town anymore, it's a mess, one idiotic housing development smooshed in between two others. I don't often go there anymore.

But today I did, and I was reminded of something I learned long ago - the nastiest shoppers in the county all reside in Elk Grove.

Have you ever been headed for the checkout line and had someone glance at you out of the corner of their eye, speed up on purpose, and pull their cart rudely in front of yours? Then they look off in the other direction as if they didn't see you? I've had this happen maybe 6 times in my life, and always in Elk Grove.

I don't know why this is, maybe it just got started with one sourpuss and spread all over town. The little old lady who cut me off this afternoon was typical of what I've seen. She had one of those mouths with wrinkles all around it that made it look like she sucks lemons for fun. You know, the kind of mouth that is vaguely reminiscent of an anus? You just know there will be no good outcome if you clear your throat and say something like, "Pardon me, but I was here first."

The checkers see what's happening and they ignore it. That's OK, I'll just keep spending my money in Rancho Cordova.

On the way out of Elk Grove I had to drive through 2 more things I find offensive about the "new" Elk Grove - roundabounds! It's interesting that in Sedona, where we saw 7 of them in a row, the drivers seem to take pride in the social and ecological correctness of these traffic hazards. They are patient and polite and everyone takes his turn.

In a town like Elk Grove, I predict they will always be sore spots. The nastiest shoppers in the county don't do well in the roundabounds either.

Oh, so I got home and Bob took the parts from me and started to install them in the refrigerator. "Where's the replacement screw," he asked, "for the one that's broken off here?" Ah yes, that would be the one I didn't know about. So now we have a brand-spankin' new produce drawer that lists to one side because there's a screw missing. It looks like it wasn't made to be replaced, either, because there's no way to get the old piece out. It's welded into the wall of the refrigerator.

So I'm back to shopping for a refrigerator.